


Live With Me

by lurkingspecter



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Temporary Character Death, everyone's gonna be okay I promise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-13
Packaged: 2019-03-26 08:48:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13854249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkingspecter/pseuds/lurkingspecter
Summary: When the Hunger absorbs the IPRE John decides to keep Merle around for company, and Merle realizes that he will have to play along if he wants to save his friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12919998)? this is the good end version of that.

It had been a bad cycle.

Well, bad wasn’t exactly the right word. Taako had called it _fan-fucking-tastic_.

 _Fan-fucking-tastic_ , he’d said when the ship crash-landed on the plane.

 _Fan-fucking-tastic_ , he’d said when the natives didn’t have the right parts to fix it.

 _Fan-fucking-tastic_ , he’d said when the Hunger had swept down on them a whole week earlier than expected.

Davenport had laboriously steered between columns of darkness as the broken engine made pained noises behind them.

It wasn’t his fault when they weren’t able to turn in time and a pillar struck the ship, knocking it out of the sky, and another tendril of darkness wrapped around it.

The Hunger pulled the ship into itself, and along with it the Light, clasped in Lucretia’s hands.

The blaze of the twins’ final, defiant attacks shone within the Hunger for a moment.

And then all was black.

*

Merle woke in an armchair. A black opal armchair.

“Oh, you’re awake. Good. I wasn’t sure how long that would take.”

Merle’s bleary gaze traveled up to the man sitting across the table from him.

He remembered what had happened.

“Shit.”

John was silent for a minute, waiting for Merle to get his bearings. He took in the room as the rest of his body woke up. Everything was the same material as the chair, and appeared to be growing up out of the ground. The table between them sprouted up from one thick leg, appearing to be almost mushroom-like in its construction. The table and chairs were rough-hewn, something about them suggesting figures molded from melted wax. Otherwise, the place was bare.

“Am I dead?”

“No, you’re as alive as I am.”

“And my friends?”

“Also alive. More or less.”

He said this breezily, as if he didn’t care either way. Merle’s hand clenched around the arm of the chair.

“You ate them.”

John smiled.

“Not how I would have put it, but yes, they’re part of the Hunger now.”

Merle looked at his hands. They appeared unchanged.

“And I’m not.”

“Yes and no. Like me, you’re part of it, but you’re also a discrete entity. I managed to convince it that letting you maintain your individuality was useful.”

“Why?”

John cleared his throat.

“Let’s not get into that right now. How do you feel?”

Merle let out a harsh laugh.

“How do I feel? You ate my fucking family, man!”

As anger welled up inside him his hand went to his waist instinctively, and he was surprised to find that his axe was still there. John’s eyes followed the movement. He sighed.

“I see. That’s unfortunate. I would suggest that you move your hand.”

Merle’s grip tightened.

“Oh?”

He realized that John was looking at something behind him. He turned and saw, on that shimmering dark wall, a dozen bright white eyes glaring at him. He put his hands up in the universal “please don’t kill me” gesture and one by one they sank back into the wall.

“They’ll only tolerate so much of that behavior, I’m afraid,” John said. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I would, however, advise you to keep the axe nearby.”

“Why?”

An eye appeared on the table between them. John leaned back.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Merle stared at the eye, resisting the urge to squash it like a bug.

“I...think I understand.”

John looked relieved.

“Good.”

He stood up, smiling.

“Can I show you to your room?”

“It ain’t like I’ve got any choice,” Merle muttered, and followed him through an opening in the ooze.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! i'm not 100% sure where this is going, but we're gonna find out together.
> 
> (i'm @androidwitch on tumblr, please come talk to me about these old men)


	2. Chapter 2

John’s grasp of interior design continued to be lacking.

The hallways were circular, making them look like tunnels that some burrowing creature had made.

“When’s the last time you were inside a building?” Merle said.

“It’s been several million years.”

“Right, well, I don’t know how it was where you came from, but where I’m from people generally try to keep the walls perpendicular with the ground.”

John brushed a hand along the wall and it shivered, like something alive.

“I’ve been having some trouble keeping everything in the right shape. The Hunger isn’t too happy that I’m diverting resources toward this.”

“You’d think that a huge eldritch abomination would have some energy to spare.”

“Oh, it’s perfectly capable of summoning a nice room. It’s just hoping that I’ll give up on trying to make this work and let it eat you.”

Merle moved a bit closer to John.

“Ah.”

“Don’t worry. It wouldn’t do that without my permission.”

“That doesn’t really comfort me, not gonna lie.”

“Really, it’s not worth thinking about. Forget I said anything.”

Merle rolled his eyes.

“If you say so.”

They passed several other chambers as they were talking, then stopped at the one on the end.

“Here we are!” John said with a cheeriness that made Merle wince.

This room was much more well-formed than the others. It was well-furnished, too—there was an excessive amount of furniture, actually, as if John hadn’t been exactly sure how much furniture Merle would need and had decided to add all the furniture he could think of, just in case.

Most prominently, in the middle of the room, was a bed. A huge bed. Way too much bed for one person.

“Do you have a room too?”

“I don’t have a bedroom, though I did make a sort of office space for myself.”

Merle continued frowning at the bed.

“Do you sleep?”

“No. I don’t need it. You don’t need it anymore either but I, uh, thought you might enjoy doing it anyway. For fun.”

“For fun.”

Merle was whisked out of his thoughts of the forced-to-share-a-bed fanfic he had caught Lucretia writing once.

He plopped down on the sheets.

“What am I now, John?”

John sat down next to him. He took the fabric between thumb and forefinger and rubbed it.

“Is this soft enough? I couldn’t remember exactly how silk feels.”

Merle put a hand on his shoulder and turned John toward him.

“Answer me.”

John took his hand off his shoulder and held it in his own. As he rubbed it—a motion that was probably meant to be soothing—his expression was almost regretful. Almost.

“I was hoping that we could wait to have this conversation until you were settled in.”

“No. We’re having it now.”

John sighed.

“Fine.” He held out his other hand. “Knife, please.”

Some ooze dripped down from the ceiling and took the shape of a knife. He let go of Merle and cut his thumb, and the substance that leaked out wasn’t blood—it was the same black opal material that surrounded them.

He held it up to Merle’s face.

“See?”

Merle swallowed.

“Yeah.”

John took Merle’s hand again.

“May I?”

His heart pounded.

_Please no please please please._

“Yes.”

John cut his finger and Merle watched the same liquid drip out of him.

“We’re made of the same thing now, Merle.”

John was fighting the urge to smile at this, Merle saw. He was delighted.

Merle wanted to deck him.

“Why did you do this to me?”

John rubbed his thumb, spreading the substance around, making an oily sheen on his skin. He looked embarrassed, suddenly.

“I—I realized that I was lonely, Merle.”

Merle crossed his arms.

“I thought that friendship wasn’t enough for you.”

“After you left and I realized that you really were never coming back, I changed my mind.”

Merle let out a long breath, trying to control his anger.

“When I told you to kiss my ass I thought that was a pretty clear signal that I don’t enjoy your company anymore.”

John frowned.

“But you could learn to enjoy it again, couldn’t you?”

Merle blinked at him incredulously.

“Pan help me, you really have no idea what you’ve done, do you?”

John tilted his head. There was genuine concern in his gaze, but no understanding.

“Merle, I’ve made you immortal. I mean, more immortal than you already were. A safe kind of immortal. You’ve been running nonstop for years, and I know it’s worn you down, but look—you don’t have to run anymore. You can finally settle down here with me. I was—I was kind of thinking that we could be co-captains, or something.” He made a gesture that encompassed the entirety of the Hunger. “I want to share all of this with you.”

“Pass.”

John sighed.

“I know I can’t force you to be friends with me, but we’re sort of stuck together now. It’s either live with me or let the Hunger take you.”

“That’s what I want, actually. I think I’d rather just join my friends.”

John took Merle’s hands.

“No. I can’t lose you again.”

Merle ripped his hands away and stood up.

“Too bad.”

He strode over to the wall, unhooked his axe, and swung as hard as he could.

It glanced off and he staggered. Not deterred yet, he swung again, and the same thing happened. He had made two shallow dents in the wall, both barely noticeable. It would take him ages to hack through to whatever was on the other side. He tried a few more times just in case, then stood back, panting.

“Okay. So. This stuff is tougher than it looks.”

A few eyes popped out of the wall, but they looked more curious than angry. John walked over and waved them off.

“He’s just trying to provoke you. Go away.”

They did as they were told, but reluctantly, as if they would have liked to see where this was going.

“See. I told you that they won’t do anything without my say so,” John said, but Merle saw that at his side his fingers were spread in a familiar position, ready to summon fire.

They _probably_ won’t do anything, Merle inferred. Hence, the axe.

John saw Merle staring at his hand and relaxed, reaching up to straighten his tie instead.

“No need to push it, though,” he said.

 _Oh, I’m gonna push it alright,_ thought Merle.

He set his axe on a nearby table and stretched, feigning tiredness.

“You know what, I think I’m gonna take you up on that nap offer. You’ve given me a lot to think through and I’d like some alone time to do it, if that’s okay.”

“Of course. If you need me, just call out. I’ll be in one of the rooms down the hall.”

“Can do.”

Merle climbed into the bed and pulled the not-quite-silk sheets up to his chin.

John paused at the doorway.

“Sleep well,” he said, without a trace of irony, and left with a faint smile on his lips.

The light emanating from the walls faded seemingly on its own, and Merle groaned.

While he fumbled around in search of a lightswitch or a lamp, he began thinking of ways to get the Hunger to eat him.

*

Merle paced back and forth along the wall, his shadow bouncing in the light of three different lamps.

He had started with threats and insults. He was about to move on to begging.

“Listen, Hunger, old pal, when’s the last time you had willing prey? Just open up and eat me already. You know you want to.”

The wall remained blank, solid, impassive. Merle turned away, sighing.

“Whatever.”

Behind him there was a noise and he felt a shift in the air, as if the pressure had dropped.

When he looked back he saw that a door-sized section of the wall had fallen away, revealing roiling liquid that emanated a faint heat. Indistinct shapes swam inside of it.

Eyes appeared in an arch over the door.

“Oh,” Merle said.

He took a step forward, and stopped. His hands were shaking.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.

As if the Hunger sensed his hesitation, hands grew from the floor behind him and pushed him toward the door, stopping when he was only a few inches away from the surface of the liquid. He could really feel that heat now. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

One of the faint shapes seemed familiar.

Merle squinted into the haze, trying to make sense of the figure’s outline, and then he realized why they were recognizable: in their hand was a familiar journal, always transmuted by Taako to be the same size and shape.

“Lucretia.”

His friends were on the other side, waiting. All he had to do was step through.

Then he thought about those hands, pushing him to the door but not into it.

He took a step back.

“You seem pretty eager to get rid of me, but you still can’t force me to do it, huh? I guess you don’t want ol’ Johnny to get mad at you. But it’s my fault if I step through, right? You can’t be blamed for that.”

They squinted down at him, confused, not sure where he was going with this.

“What I’m trying to understand is why you’d be willing risk upsetting him, since apparently that’s a priority to you, by doin’ this.”

Another hand grew out of the floor and pointed insistently at the door.

_Go. Now._

There was something desperate in that motion.

“Oh. I get it.” Merle grinned. “I’m a threat to you, aren’t I?”

A multivoiced hiss vibrated through the room and the eyes glared down at him, burning white-hot with rage.

“Yeah. You think that I might win him over to my side, and you don’t wanna lose him. He’s important to you.”

The floor in front of him crumbled, revealing more of the magma-like liquid, and he lept back.

Okay, maybe they weren’t _that_ concerned about upsetting John.

“Hey, uh, John?” he called.

Part of the ceiling fell away and more magma dripped down, narrowly missing him as he dodged out of the way.

And then John appeared in the doorway, and with a crisp crackle the holes instantly repaired themselves.

“Merle, what—“ John paused. “Why is it so dark in here?”

“I couldn’t find the damn light switch.”

John stood blinking in the half-light.

“Light switch? Oh, yes, that thing. I completely forgot.”

He brushed his finger along the wall and a switch appeared. The room resumed its ambient glow.

“What’s the matter?”

A few eyes remained on the wall. They were were watching Merle carefully, waiting for him to tell, waiting to see John’s reaction.

An image flashed through Merle’s mind, of John insisting that he stay by his side after this. He cleared his throat.

“Uh, nothin’. Your pals were just giving me the stink eye. Made me kinda uncomfortable.”

“They’re only being paranoid. They’ll probably stop that after they get used to you.”

Merle laughed.

“Right, I’m sure I’ll feel just like one of the family soon.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic, but that’s exactly what I want. This is your home now. You should feel comfortable here.”

Merle gave the eyes a long look, then turned back to John.

“You know what? You’re right. I may as well accept it. May as well get comfy.” He rubbed his hands together. “You got any games other than chess? I feel like that’d get old real fast.”

John’s face brightened.

“I made a whole game room for that. Want to see it?”

“Sounds great.”

Merle flipped the eyes off behind John’s back as they left the room, and followed him down the hall.

Later, he watched John’s face as they played a game of cards, wondering at his neediness, at his relief to finally have Merle’s company.

If the Hunger was concerned that he might be able to change John’s mind, then maybe there was some hope after all.


	3. Chapter 3

Merle was starting to understand why John had been bored. There was nothing to do here.

John seemed to possess every board game/card game/etc known to man. He could tell stories about distant planes that should have been fascinating. He had created plenty of rooms in the Hunger for Merle to explore. All of this should have been plenty to occupy them for a while.

By the end of the first week, though, monotony had started to settle in.

So Merle slept—“for fun,” as John had suggested—and he had nightmares about his friends getting digested, and he woke up wanting to kick John in the shins.

He was trying to stay civil with John, because he didn’t think that shouting accusations was going to get him anywhere, but it was hard. He had always been patient with him before. That was just in his nature. Everywhere the IPRE had gone he had been the diplomat, the one who could sit down with a group of strangers and be at ease instantly, but things were different here. The stakes had been high before but now they were even higher, and the pressure made him tense, made him liable to snap at John when he didn’t mean to. Now, it seemed, John was the patient one.

One day they were playing three-dimensional chess and Merle was watching John take extra time with his turn. Now that he had Merle here for infinity, there was even more care in his movements during chess. He seemed to expect that Merle would get on his level eventually and in engage in that sort of slow, deep thinking that only an ancient immortal being could attain. Right now, though, Merle still wasn’t used to it and he found John’s patience more frustrating than anything.

“Is this what you always did before? Just sat here by yourself and tried to pass the time?”

John turned the tiered board slightly, considering the pieces from a different angle.

“Before you pulled me out I wasn’t really conscious of having a body. Mostly I just let myself be carried along by the rest of the Hunger, only becoming fully aware of myself as an individual when some problem arose that the Hunger needed me to resolve. That was rare, though. I certainly didn’t have rooms like this.”

“You just floated along in the goop.”

John smiled.

“Basically.”

“I guess you can’t really be bored when you’re one with the slime.”

“I had my moments. Even when I lost myself I could still feel my own thoughts, faintly, like a current that had been drowned out by the greater tide of the Hunger. Shortly before you arrived I was starting to wonder when it was all going to be over, frankly. It had been so long.” 

John watched as Merle listlessly flicked a piece, knocking it over, and stood it back up again.

“You’ve started to feel the monotony yourself, I take it.”

“Yeah.”

John sighed.

“I was hoping that it wouldn’t come so quickly. We’ll have plenty to do soon, though.”

“Oh?”

“We’re getting close to the next plane.”

Merle slumped back in his chair.

“I didn’t think we’d get there so fast.”

“You were in stasis for quite a while. The Hunger didn’t come around easily.”

“When is this blessed occasion, exactly?”

“It’ll be a few more weeks.”

“Guess I’d better prepare myself, then.”

John rolled a queen piece between his fingers.

“I’m going to be honest, Merle, this will probably be a strange experience for you the first few times, but...I think that you’ll come to understand why I value this process.”

“Hmph.”

John, taking this to mean “maybe,” flashed Merle a quick grin and placed his queen.

“Check.”

Merle leaned forward and once again began the long process of searching for a hole in his defences.

*

Dread seemed to make time speed up.

As the day grew near John became preoccupied, consulting with his scouts to determine the best method of attack. Merle didn’t want to know what was going to happen. He didn’t want to know how many people John was going to have to kill to get what he wanted this time. When the scouts appeared John invited him to stay and listen, to help prepare him as he had asked, but Merle always glared at him and left.

He awoke one day to find John sitting beside the bed.

“It’s time,” he said. “Do you want to watch?”

He didn’t. But now that the moment had come, he felt like he had to. The least he could do was bear witness to this.

Merle nodded.

As they walked to the main room Merle’s feet stuck to the floor. It was like walking through mud.

The Hunger was losing its solidity in anticipation of absorbing the next plane, John explained. That would make the process go more smoothly.

Something in the mood around them reminded Merle of an eager, slavering dog. He splashed through the dripping hallways as quickly as he could, shivering whenever the drool brushed his bare skin.

The main room was mostly exempt from the liquefying process. John led Merle to the center of it, where there was a solid circle of floor, and took his hand.

“Here’s the thing,” John said. “I’m connected to the rest of the Hunger, but you’re not. Being aware of it all can be a bit much, so I wanted to ease you into it, but you should be fine if I just give you a peek. To do that, though, I’m going to have to connect us.”

John summoned a knife.

“That again,” Merle said, suppressing a wave of nausea.

“Yes. This is the best means at my disposal, unfortunately.”

John cut his palm, and Merle allowed his palm to be cut as well. Before pressing their hands together John glanced at him, hesitating.

“If this gets overwhelming at any point just tell me, okay?”

Merle gritted his teeth. To hell with John’s courtesy.

“I can take it.”

Their hands intertwined, mashing the cuts together, and Merle gasped. There was a tug in his chest, as if a string had been pulled taut between his heart and his hand, and some of the Hunger in him gushed out and mixed with the Hunger seeping out of John. The pieces intertwined and Merle felt that tug again as their hands were pulled even closer, completely flush with each other. It was like they had been sewn together at that point. Merle couldn’t feel the border between his hand and John’s anymore.

His throat tightened.

_ We aren’t stuck like this. Relax. Breathe, _ John thought, and it took Merle a few seconds to realize that he hadn’t spoken aloud.

_ Oh my fucking god, _ he thought, and John laughed.

_ It’s nice to hear your unfiltered thoughts for once. _

_ No offense, John, but I don’t wanna know what’s knocking around in that strange noggin of yours. _

_ Look further, then. Can you feel it? _

He could. There was something beyond John’s mind; his thoughts were serving as a buffer between Merle and the tempest that was the Hunger. Merle closed his eyes, and stepped out into the storm.

A rush of thoughts and feelings hit him, too quick and interwoven to make out distinctly, but mostly there was that feeling he had sensed before. Anticipation. Most of the Hunger was focused outward and down, down toward the plane below.

“Have you found the eyes yet?” John asked, saving Merle from being swept off in their eagerness. Merle let his awareness skim over the bottom surface of the Hunger, found them, and looked out through those bright eyes that he had seen staring down at him so many times before.

They were unhurriedly moving through space toward a plane. It was purple and orange, he could see from this distance. He could also see that it had twin suns, just like his own home.

Merle prayed that the place wasn’t inhabited.

As they drew closer a new feeling arose, more sharp-edged and burning than any he had felt before: hunger. Furious hunger. Murderous hunger. An image flashed through his mind, of some hollow-bellied beast with teeth bared, ready to snap at whatever came near and gulp it down.

Merle’s body tensed. He took a deep breath, reminding himself that these weren’t his emotions.

The Hunger centered itself over the plane and—Merle cursed. There were people staring up at the sky, eyes filled with terror, some of them running and screaming, some of them trying to shove their children into their homes. They weren’t advanced. Few of them stuck around to face the invaders, and the ones who did wielded nothing more complex than swords and spears.

A pillar smashed into the village and dark figures swarmed out of it. They advanced up the main street, killing anyone who got in their way, and Merle could sense where they were heading, even before they moved. The steepled building—some sort of church, he assumed—at the center of town was radiating desirability.

A tendril broke through the wall of the church, grabbed the Light, and pulled it in.

Light exploded inside the Hunger, racing out to every edge. Merle was reminded of a time when Lup had shot a spark into the middle of a field of oil and the whole thing had gone up in flames in an instant, burning the oil, leaving nothing behind but a dark stretch of burnt earth. Except here, the light lasted, spreading through the Hunger in wave upon wave of dazzling ripples. The entire creature was alive with color. He could feel the light singing through his veins as it sang through everything else. 

He didn’t want to call it beautiful.

But he couldn’t think of another word for it.

He barely had time to reflect on this before the second phase began. The Hunger stretched part of itself out, lassoed the plane, and slowly drew it into its mass.

At first it felt bulky and strange, a foreign body lodged within them like a thorn. Then they began, for lack of a better word, to dissolve it. It wasn’t digestion, exactly. The Hunger was taking the bonds that connected everything in that plane, tearing them apart, and then reattaching them to itself using the Light’s power.

It absorbed. It redistributed.

And then, it grew.

Back in their room, John sighed. Relief and satisfaction radiated from him, and Merle felt it too, he had to admit.

It was hard to be horrified when he felt like that.

When it was over they looked at each other and Merle saw that John’s eyes were bright with excitement. Merle felt rejuvenated, but John appeared to be getting some sort of adrenaline rush out of this. 

“I’m so glad that I could share this with you, Merle.”

“It was interesting,” Merle said, trying to keep a straight face, but because they were still connected he couldn’t help but let a snide thought about John’s breathiness slip through.

John reddened and pulled his hand away. The Hunger stringing them together snapped and Merle stumbled, suddenly feeling ungrounded.

“There’s no need to be crass about it, but yes, I do find the process...electrifying.”

“Electrifying, eh?”

John raised an eyebrow.

“How do  _ you  _ feel?”

Shit. Right. He had been in his head.

“Fresh as a daisy,” he admitted, grimacing.

“You’re part of the Hunger now. This process is what sustains you as well. It’s only natural that you’d feel like that.”

Merle scuffed a boot against the floor. The room had returned to its former more-or-less solid state. Now that he wasn’t connected to the rest of the Hunger the horror of what had happened returned to him. He felt like he ought to have done something. Maybe if he had punched John in the gut that would’ve distracted the Hunger. Maybe he should have abandoned the last of his dignity and begged John to stop.

He shook his head. No, there was nothing he could have done. There wasn’t any use in feeling guilty about it.

John was staring at the wall, his eyes distant. He was probably already going through the things the Hunger had absorbed, figuring out how to make use of them in the future.

The future. God. Merle thought of the years and years of this that he would have to endure, years of watching the Hunger destroy planes, unable to do anything about it. This was his life now.

He gave John a sharp look.

“How big have you gotta get before you’re satisfied?” he said.

John blinked. He had forgotten Merle was there for a minute.

“That’s a tricky question,” he said. “But here’s my theory: at a certain point, I’m not sure when, we will become so large, will have broken so many laws, that the multiverse simply won’t be able to support us anymore. Reality will crack. It could be the next plane, it could be the next hundredth plane, but eventually the fabric of existence will only be able to take so much.”

_ The next plane? _ Merle thought. He looked at the determination in John’s eyes.  _ I hope I have more time than that. _

There had to be something that he could say to change his mind. Most people had a breaking point, Merle knew. John had obviously reached his long ago. But Merle also knew a second thing: most people could be saved. Just as everyone had a specific thing that could break them, they had a specific thing that could save them, too. He had to believe that.

The trick would be to discover what that thing was in John. 

He didn’t have any time to waste.

“You don’t have to work right now, do you?” Merle said.

John hesitated. 

“Well…”

“Let’s just talk. Like old times. I know I’ve been kinda giving you the cold shoulder since you brought me here, but that’s not the right way to act. I don’t want to stop getting to know you, especially now that we’re living together.”

John smiled.

“You’re right. All of that can wait. You’re my first priority right now.”

“Glad to hear it.”

They sat at the table, and talked, and Merle began searching for something that he could use.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the comments!


End file.
